Death of Dial-Up

SBC’s new low $14.95 a month pricing for DSL service is the last nail in the coffin for dial-up, at least in those locales where high speed connections are available. (The offer is only available online.) FCC says that’s over 90% of the country, but then we might be stretching a little. Bad news for AOL, NetZero and all those who have made a living out of selling dial-up connections.

Even though this price is for new customers, the lower prices are going to accelerate the price war between cable and phone companies, at least for new customers. I am sure, cable guys are going to counter this move with same priced service with 1 megabits per second minimum. But the new aggressive move could be a way to throttle down cable operator’s current speed advantage. Alternatively, since we have been noticing all the issues with IPTV – technical and political – which means the higher speeds could take a little while, this could be a defensive move to shore up against line losses to cable operators a chance to mop-up the broadband market. By being aggressive, SBC can lock in a lot more people. That’s smart. Hey no one is talking about the upload speeds on these budget connections. I hope there is enough juice to make VoIP calls. (Or one could call it killing two birds with one stone!)